REEL DE ORO

Marcel Rasquin was born in Caracas in 1976, studied Social Communications at the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello, and pursued postgraduate studies for a master’s in Cinema at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, where he filmed several shorts that won praise and prizes.Rasquin directs straight from the heart and is dedicated to working with actors. His first film entitled Hermano (Brother) won more than 15 international film festival awards. He wrote and directed the film in the year 2010 and with it took the Golden George plus the People’s Choice Award at the Moscow International Film Festival in the same year. He also took the prize for Best Film at the Ibero-American Film Festival at Huelva, Special Jury Prize for Best Opera Prima at the Havana Film Festival, the Cinelatino Audience Choice Award at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, and many more.Hermano was the Venezuelan candidate for the 2011 Oscars, was a box-office blockbuster in its home country and has been presented at more than 50 festivals around the world.As might be expected, Rasquin’s advertising work has been honored as well. In 2008 the director won the prize for Best Director Venezuela at the Ojo de Iberoamerica awards and from the Venezuelan Circulo Creativo, repeating as Best Director in the former competition in 2012. And in the same year, the ad campaign Ford Retroceso, co-directed by his partner Joe Torres, was a finalist at the Cannes Lions, where in 2013 his spot Adidas Vinotinto was tabbed as a finalist for Best Direction. Rasquin deeply admires Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas, Spike Jonze and Steve McQueen, masters in whose footsteps he is pleased to follow but does not compare himself to them. “What I like about them is that they have found their own unique voice and never stray from using it. That’s what I want for myself” he says.“You go on the set looking for something specific, you go prepared, you’re certain, you go with the whole team lined up to attain the same goal – but sometimes, just once in a while, something happens that is impossible to plan, impossible to foresee, an instant of vertigo, a moment of truth while the camera is rolling. There it is, you’ve managed to trap lightning in a bottle!” is how Rasquin describes his daily adventure when it’s time to film, moments that give him goosepimples.He says his role is to serve the story and the idea, but doesn’t know how not to get personally and intimately involved in every shoot, he says he gives his heart and soul to every project. “I dedicate all my efforts to the deep love I feel for filmmaking and telling stories” the director says.In 2011, together with partners Juan Antonio Diaz and Joe Torres, he founded Tres Cinematografia, a Venezuelan production company engaged in audiovisuals for movies, television, advertising and the Internet, which has now expanded to the United States and Panama.Despite the desperate crisis Venezuela is going through at the moment, Marcel Rasquin believes that Venezuelan cinema is enjoying a healthy, productive and valuable time, and that the awards and recent honors, both in film and in advertising, have caught the world’s attention.He is currently writing a screenplay in his native land, will direct his first feature film in English in Los Angeles, and is working on Aurora, his second fiction feature for movie theaters.Production company: Tres Cinematografía, EE UU Contact: {Carla Delgado;carla@hellotres.com}T +1-239-877-5470{Watch video;www.produ.tv/popup.html?noti=8011}